Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

38 PRETENSIONS OF FREE MASONRY.
v be proof to all of the apparent harmlessness of the institution.
But gentlemen Masons of all professions, will
find something new in this volume. Their avocations allow
them no leisure for the researches necessary to form
any other than the common estimate of Masonry. What
is good in the order they adorn, and what is bad they overlook,
and it is forgotten. They think and act as their fathers
have done in respect to Masonry, and push their inquiries
after new truth in a more grateful direction. To
them I cheerfiilly commend my labour, with full confidence
of a good degree of harmony in the entire abandonment
of the institution. They are capable of examining, and
deciding rightly upon the subject: with them I leave it,
nothing doubting. But in large societies there must be
great varieties, and some will be found ready to adhere to
the institution after it is proved to be a fraud; will adhere
to it perhaps the more closely for its being a friend in need ;
a fraud detected, belonging to that class of men " who make it
a point of honour not to be disabused, and who had rather
fall into a hundred errors than confess one." But Free
Masonry has no more than a fair proportion of such men.
Its supporters are generally wise to discern, and candid to
acknowledge. To the consideration of its chosen ones, I
commend my labours, saying, beforehand, that my confidence
in preparing these views for the public, is largely
founded upon the intelligence of the fraternity; and that
if, in the end, their high estimate of the order remain unshaken
; that if, in years to come, they will continue to
robe themselves in white aprons, with scarlet scarfs and
girdles, to date their papers Ahno Lucis, and to teach morality
by the trowel, the plumb-line, and the mallet; that if
they continue to present to the public taste, gorgeous pomp
on occasions of humiliation, and to parade the uncouth
habits of grand high priest, and king, and scribe, before
the faces of mourning relatives; if these things, and
many more, continue to be countenanced by the wise, honoured
by the learned, and hallowed by the pious, then, be